Sunday, May 10, 2020

The 1918 flu pandemic ("America's Forgotten Pandemic") has not so much passed out of our memory as it has instead been nearly consciously pushed from it. As the Economist has reported, for example, its own archives indicate that its editors "obeyed the wartime censors and avoided discussion of the disease in its leaders or editorials." The pandemic was widely forgotten in public memory and ignored history books.

However, there was and is excellent scholarship on the issue. Perhaps the most brief and succinct entry into the subject is PBS' excellent 1998 episode of the American Experience. While produced 22 years ago, nearly every element of current events is present in the 51-minute episode. I caution parents, it is difficult for children. The teacher's guide to the episode asks questions that in retrospect are heartbreaking -- "Looking back at the flu epidemic, what do students think should have been done to try to control the disease’s spread? Why do they think these actions were not taken?"

"It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it ... the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away ... the effect of my mother's death was that I realized, for the first time and forever, that we were not safe, we were not beyond harm. My father did what he could, he kept us together as a family but, from that time on there was a sadness, which had not existed before, a deep down sadness that never quite went away because, I knew people aren't safe and nobody's safe —terrible things could happen — to anybody."

While the pandemic itself was poorly documented, the crisis played a role in changing many minds on the role of government. Hearkening back to the Economist, the newspaper notes that the paper's editorial line on government intervention changed after the pandemic. Previously, the editors had opposed efforts at education and public sewers. That changed rather abruptly. Instead, they began advocating for more involvement to improve public health. That included calls for “decent conditions of work, fair pay and good housing.” Perhaps most interestingly, the paper began to promote “education” as a method that should be used to prevent the spread of disease in the future. A lot for thought in this, about how much we once knew, and perhaps had forgotten.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

This past week the Economist's Bagehot columnist wrote about the implementation of what are Zoom meetings for the United Kingdom's House of Commons, and some of the practical consequences. Adrian Wooldridge writes the column at this time. It is named after Walter Bagehot, a former editor of the Economist and author of "The English Constitution" (one of the books I kept from undergrad). He's also known for his rule for central bankers in a panic from "Lombard Street ("lend freely and at a penalty rate"). Both have been very practical of late, given COVID-19.

I wonder how we will regard the hybrid approach described herein in a few years. While change has come for everyone, not least the "Mother of Parliaments" (churches were closed in the UK this year for Easter for the first time since apparently 1218), the piece makes clear the essential work that elected officials must do to support newspapers in their efforts to scrutinize the government. In the UK it is essentially only MPs that possess the combination of three critical tools -- they may ask written questions that the relevant ministers are obliged to answer, they have detailed knowledge of their own local constituencies, and they have the ability to speak on behalf of the voters.

Perhaps the "hybrid" we should be watching is not online versus in person meetings of Parliament. Instead it may be that recognizing that government accountability in the United Kingdom increasingly depends upon cooperative joint scrutiny by MPs and the press. Perhaps it would be best to call this the era of the dual hybrid Parliament ...

This web site and the materials provided herein are for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only, and are not legal advice.

No client or other reader should rely on or act or refrain from acting on the basis of any matter or information contained in the web site without seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice.

Transmission of the information on this web site is not intended to create, and receipt does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.

Information on this web site should not be taken as a promise or indication of future results.